


i've been screaming for so long

by arbhorwitch



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Angst, M/M, aka pharaohs who don't know how to handle themselves without their partner, honestly this relationship baffles me i'm amazed i wrote this at all, squinty puzzleshipping, the season nobody liked but hey a crying yami is all i really need in life, vague season 4 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:43:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbhorwitch/pseuds/arbhorwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time he has to wonder if he'll die alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i've been screaming for so long

**Author's Note:**

> ahahaha i'm back after months of no writing and 'lo and behold it's yugioh (again)
> 
> anyway, takes place during season four in some vague hazy part of the timeline after yuugi's soul is taken and yami has to deal with the repercussions of his Ultimate Fuck-Up seriously their relationship is all sorts of effed up and unhealthy i love it 
> 
> damn it yami ヽ(ｏ`皿′ｏ)ﾉ

It’s an awful lot like being hollowed out, he thinks, this strange half-gutted feeling of failure and emptiness; an intense need to run, run, _run_ like a coward, run until his legs give out and something from the heavens tells him what he’s supposed to do because gods he’s fucked up. There’s no voice of reassurance, no shadow of himself whispering _hey it’s okay other me we’ll do this we’ll get through this_ , there’s just—nothing. Absolutely nothing at all, a dead ache where his theoretical heart should be. Funny, that. He should be used to the loneliness, but the confines of his prison was more spacious and less of an echo than the realization he’s _lost_.

They scream and yell, these people surrounding him; he hears his not-name called over and over, a desperate plead for consciousness, but as it is, he’d rather just sleep, a peace he doesn’t deserve.

(don’t do it other me don’t do it)

He places the card—no that’s not right, it slides into the slot too well, too perfectly, a calm sort of power of electricity in his veins. These hands have killed, he thinks, these hands have killed but what is _justice_ they ask: what is justice, nameless pharaoh, what is justice? What is your _justice_?

He seeks an identity in himself and finds solace in the comfort of meek curiosity, determination burning hot as the gods in his dreams, the sands sticky and thin between his fingers; he searches now, hopes for a miracle, beg-pleads for the dark magic to _fix this, damn it, give him back—!_

“Yuugi,” someone says, “Yuugi, c’mon, you gotta get up.”

There are phantom hands on his chest, chains burrowing in his ribcage, and he screams.

***

He’s not a man of (much) kindness, but there is a lingering reminder of a host, of his partner, and he cooks something resembling noodles for his—their—friends, talking quietly amongst themselves in the other room. Jou is hesitant, on edge, heat brimming in his bones as Anzu soothes them. He’s not much of a cook with these hands, a body foreign even now, a reminder that the power he’s exhausting belongs to someone else, but it’s the thought that counts. His movements are methodical and mechanical, muscle memory more than execution, and Anzu meets him halfway with a gentle touch to the inside of his wrist as she drags the pot away with a smile.

“Go sit,” she says, nodding to the couch where Jou and Honda have started discussing possible locations of vacation spots after Everything. “I’ll handle the rest of dinner, okay? You look terrible.”

The bluntness takes him off guard and he agrees stiffly, steps away from the stove where his hands are starting to fail him.

“I’m sorry,” he offers. She makes to disagree, but he cuts her off with, “Thank you, Anzu.”

She looks as if he’s slapped her, and he supposes his words cut just as sharp: he’s not used to failing, yet she is used to being a saving grace.

***

His magic is useless; he is, as a matter of fact, hopeless without a second voice, and that’s what rips him apart at four in the morning when he wakes to nothing but awful, awful _silence._

***

The memories he has are far and few in between, a terrible lack of name (oh nameless pharaoh) yet the more he weighs the outcomes, he wonders the price of searching these out, of uncovering any kind of key that will take him _home_ when these bones are home enough already. He thinks of bright, wide eyes and dice rolling long after midnight; of the way the clothes hug his hips and his thighs that are strange and otherworldly, thousands of years of dust settled deep and heavy in his own bones. Yuugi had never minded sharing, though it’s cost him his life, and a nameless pharaoh has no right to _this_.

Yuugi calls him blind. He only wishes it was that simple.

***

He vows, in some misguided part of his bitter half-soul, that if they come out of this unscathed, if he can redeem himself for the centuries of darkness-sin-taint caked dry and bloody under his nails, he will make it up to Yuugi: a guest is only as good as their deeds, and a host deserves better than what he’s been given so far. It’s less about the flesh and blood that he walks in, forgiveness a last resort, but it’s enough in the worst way possible.

Scared of failure: he has lost everything, really, and that’s—

***

(perhaps not a great king, perhaps his history is shrouded in death and shadows after all.)


End file.
